Teton County, Wyoming For those in the know, I took a road trip home to Seattle and will be flying to Peru in a week and a half.
My first stop on the road trip was the Wind River reservation (see Rez Blog Dog from first entry). If you're willing to dig in as soon as you arrive, you'll become an instant multi-tasking pioneer. Within less than 24-hours, I had cooked dinner for 10, remedied a dog's swollen eye from a horse kick, pulled porcupine quills from a dog's chest, kept my eye on a toddler bent on playing in a full corral, pulled errant wire from a pen so horses and dogs wouldn't get hurt, chased 11 dogs off from a horse (one was biting the horse's tail and was literally flying in the air from the horse spinning around), ran two loads of laundry, assisted in a sweat lodge ceremony, and went hunting for ceremonial wood... At some point I was riding in my friend Stan's pickup and when we crossed through a barbed wire fence and onto some kind of preserve he says, "By the way, it's illegal for you to be here unless you're enrolled in the tribe, so you need to decide now which one of us you're married to. And if they ask where your wedding ring is, tell them you had to hock it for gas money, otherwise you'll go to jail." Uhhhh. Great, my choice is between a guy nearly 50, a 20 year-old punk, or a 17 year-old kid. I said I would make my choice if the game warden actually found us. He never did.
On my way out of Wind River, I drove through the stunning and desolate Wind River Canyon. The only people I saw on the rest of my trip were hunters and guys on 4-wheelers. Good times. As I wound my way to Jackson, I came across torn up roads and snowy mountains. Because of this, I didn't make it to Boise on time and instead had to camp out in my car in Craters of the Moon Nat'l Monument. I'm glad I slept in my car because it began to downpour and by morning had turned into a good 3-4" of heavy snow. I was asking myself why I had put my snow tires in storage. The tetons were clouded in, but I had decent weather the rest of the way and made it from southern Idaho to Seattle in one big push. Yakima was amazing (wait, wait, don't roll your eyes yet) because it's apple-picking season and the air was thick and hot with the scent of apples - it was dizzying! The rolling hills of vineyards and apple orchards were glowing and gorgeous in the golden glow of pre-dusk sunlight, making Yakima the most picturesque city on my trip.
My first stop on the road trip was the Wind River reservation (see Rez Blog Dog from first entry). If you're willing to dig in as soon as you arrive, you'll become an instant multi-tasking pioneer. Within less than 24-hours, I had cooked dinner for 10, remedied a dog's swollen eye from a horse kick, pulled porcupine quills from a dog's chest, kept my eye on a toddler bent on playing in a full corral, pulled errant wire from a pen so horses and dogs wouldn't get hurt, chased 11 dogs off from a horse (one was biting the horse's tail and was literally flying in the air from the horse spinning around), ran two loads of laundry, assisted in a sweat lodge ceremony, and went hunting for ceremonial wood... At some point I was riding in my friend Stan's pickup and when we crossed through a barbed wire fence and onto some kind of preserve he says, "By the way, it's illegal for you to be here unless you're enrolled in the tribe, so you need to decide now which one of us you're married to. And if they ask where your wedding ring is, tell them you had to hock it for gas money, otherwise you'll go to jail." Uhhhh. Great, my choice is between a guy nearly 50, a 20 year-old punk, or a 17 year-old kid. I said I would make my choice if the game warden actually found us. He never did.
On my way out of Wind River, I drove through the stunning and desolate Wind River Canyon. The only people I saw on the rest of my trip were hunters and guys on 4-wheelers. Good times. As I wound my way to Jackson, I came across torn up roads and snowy mountains. Because of this, I didn't make it to Boise on time and instead had to camp out in my car in Craters of the Moon Nat'l Monument. I'm glad I slept in my car because it began to downpour and by morning had turned into a good 3-4" of heavy snow. I was asking myself why I had put my snow tires in storage. The tetons were clouded in, but I had decent weather the rest of the way and made it from southern Idaho to Seattle in one big push. Yakima was amazing (wait, wait, don't roll your eyes yet) because it's apple-picking season and the air was thick and hot with the scent of apples - it was dizzying! The rolling hills of vineyards and apple orchards were glowing and gorgeous in the golden glow of pre-dusk sunlight, making Yakima the most picturesque city on my trip.
1 comment:
Yak town beauty eh? Smell of apples in the air? Wait till you get a whiff of ceviche from a street market in Cuzco!!!
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